NDAA Requires Army To Buy Intelligence Software Commercially

WASHINGTON — After a federal judge put a stop to the Army’s current plan to develop its intelligence analysis framework internally, requiring it to look again at commercially available products, a provision in the conference report of the 2017 defense policy bill further pushes the Army toward buying commercial capability. The provision would require the Army secretary to “rapidly identify and field a commercially available capability that meets tactical requirements, can integrate at the tactical unit level, is substantially easier for personnel to use and requires less training,” according to the National Defense Authorization Act report language released Wednesday. The controversy over whether the Army should scrap its Distributed Common Ground System-Army program after spending more than a decade and $3 billion to develop it or go with a commercial off-the-shelf soluti...